10/25/2009

Even though the US only has a small fraction of the H1N1 Vaccine it ordered, we are going to donate 10 percent of the vaccine to other countries

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com Wednesday that one in 10 doses of the swine-flu vaccine purchased by the U.S. will be donated to other nations before the U.S. demand for the vaccine is filled.

Sebelius also told a Senate committee that vaccine production is well behind demand.

“What we said is once we have 40 million doses (of the vaccine), the donation can start,” Sebelius told CNSNews.com. “There’s an agreement (of) 10 percent donation that 11 nations have made,” she said.

HHS has ordered about 250 million doses of the vaccine, so the donation would begin after the U.S. received just 16 percent of its original order. . . .

So on the one had the President declares a national emergency and people are worried that we won't have the vaccine soon enough. On the other hand, the President is going to give away what vaccine we have.

A brief history of the government's errors in getting vaccines to where they are supposed to be.

By Friday, 16.1 million doses of vaccine for what is also called H1N1 flu had been shipped to warehouses, the CDC said.

The total is far below the government's most recent estimate that by the end of this month, about 28 million to 30 million doses would be ready.

That estimate itself is a revison, made last week, from a prior expectation of about 40 million doses by the end of the month. However, the number of doses shipped is steadily increasing.

"We are nowhere near where we thought we'd be by now," CDC Director Thomas Frieden said Friday. "We share the frustration of people who have waited in line or called a number or checked a Web site and haven't been able to find a place to get vaccinated." . . .